1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a filtered header assembly and in particular to a filtered header assembly or filtered feedthrough connector which obviates the previous requirement for soldering the filters into a metal ground plane.
2. The Prior Art
It is well known in the electronic industry that there are often times when it is essential to provide EMI filtering in electronic circuitry. A line of ferrite-ceramic filters have been developed which accomplish the necessary filtering. An example of such known filters may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,743,978 and U.S. Pat. No. Re 29,258. These filters are manufactured in the form of a cylindrical sleeve and are secured to a pin type terminal by soldering. It is then necessary to mount the filter pin assembly in some sort of housing device without applying excessive forces to the filter which could easily cause the destruction thereof. An example of known techniques for mounting filters can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,703,701 and 3,710,285. Basically all the prior attempts for mounting filter sleeves into a ground plane have evolved around forming a stamped metal ground plane and inserting filters into specially formed apertures in the plane. However, this has not always proven to be satisfactory since forces of sufficient magnitude to break and damage the filter sleeve during insertion into the ground plane have often been developed. A more common method of mounting the filters is to solder them into the ground plane. This does not always prove to be too successful in that it is substantially impossible to repair the connector by replacing a filter once it is soldered in place and undesirably high temperatures are often developed during the soldering operations which can effect the dimensional stability of the connector. Conductive rubber sheets have been used in some applications with a metal shelve being used to apply pressure to the conductive rubber to effect an electrical interconnection with the filter. This has generally proved to be costly to assemble and not always provide satisfactory operation since it is still possible for the filters to be dislocated with respect to the ground plane.